Synge's greatest play transfers well to modern China, and the unlikely show strikes a chord with audiences, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing

Cheng Junnian, the 24-year-old actor playing Christy Mahon in China's first staging of The Playboy of the Western World, had to fight long and hard to get into the role before its opening in Beijing last week.

La La, a thin, beautiful actor who plays Pegeen Mike, commanded the stage from the opening, singing the popular song One Night in Beijing and flaunting her mini-skirt like a challenge to all who would try and get in her way.

But Christy Mahon, known in the Chinese version as Ma Shang, is one of the toughest parts in Synge's greatest play, as it requires a young actor but is such a complicated part that often tyro actors are not equal to it.

Junnian is tall, even for northern China, strikingly handsome and a graduate of China's most prestigious stage school, the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, which has produced the country's greatest actors, such as Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi. He is a hugely talented artist but he agonised all through rehearsals over whether he would be good enough.

"What did you think of me?" he asked more than once during rehearsals.

Cast outings to bars down Beijing's hutong alleyways and night clubs were raucous affairs, but Junnian usually stayed quiet during the karaoke singing and drinking games.

In the end Junnian rose to the task, handling the change from dusty migrant worker at the start, to village sports hero, to desolate figure, disguised in mini-skirt and blonde wig waving a green chair around, with a lot of style and pathos.

"I like Christy. I'm a bit like him, there are similarities between our personalities. Christy wants his friends to accept him and I suppose that I'm like that too," says Junnian. "In real life, we're both nobodies, just ordinary people. Normal people."

Synge's story of the anti-hero Christy Mahon who claims to have killed his father has parallels in classical Chinese philosophy - the philosopher Confucius said there are five core relationships that maintain social order, and one is that between father and son.

Still, on paper, it looks an unlikely, even vainglorious, project, staging The Playboy of the Western World in Beijing. Take one of Ireland's most emblematic pieces of theatre, a drama uniquely associated with Ireland's rural and nationalist heritage, and stage it in 21st-century China, where tradition is being forced to adjust to the demands of rampant economic growth at a dizzying pace.

You would think the differences are too great, but the themes of Synge's play translate seamlessly to contemporary China, and clearly strike a chord with audiences in the Oriental Theatre in downtown Beijing where it makes its Chinese debut.

The play is directed by Gavin Quinn, co-founder of Pan Pan theatre company in Dublin, and he also adapted the text. "We picked this play because the story is so good and it can carry a lot on its back. It's a universal play; structurally it's a masterpiece," says Quinn, animatedly discussing the project in a cafe in Beijing's Hohai Lake district.

The aim was to use contemporary Chinese idiom and slang and to make the play relevant to the Chinese audience. To do this, Quinn lifted Christy and Pegeen Mike out of their natural habitat in Co Mayo in the early years of the last century and put them instead in a hairdressers in the Beijing suburbs.

And these are no ordinary hairdressers - the establishments may, occasionally, cut hair out front, but there can be all kinds of shenanigans going on upstairs. "When we came here we saw the hairdressers; we thought they would be a good microcosm, places where people solve their own problems," he says.

PAN PAN FIRST decided it wanted to do a play in China four years ago during the Dublin Fringe Festival, where they spoke to Richard Wakely about staging a project they could bring back to Ireland afterwards.

Several false starts later, with a backer or two lost along the way, and with Culture Ireland on board, the project began to take shape.

O'Casey's Shadow of a Gunman was an option, but it started getting complicated because of parallels with 1930s Chinese politics.

"Also I don't know if it has anything fresh to say to China, but Playboy definitely does. And Playboy is a real actors' play - it struck a chord with the Chinese actors from the start. There is the contrast between urban and countryside, and this clash of cultures gives the audience something to grab onto," says Quinn. "We knew the story would shine through - Playboy survives no matter what. Everyone was really up for it."

This is obvious in rehearsals, where everyone has a great time, though everything is done with the kind of discipline that is expected of a Chinese actor. The older actors help the younger players, who are expected to defer to their elders as lao shi or teachers.

In one scene, it's all about getting the right bite. Christy is tied to the end of a rope and Shawn Keogh is trying to bite his upper leg. The angle of the action makes it look like the hapless Shawn is about to bite Christy between the legs. Some crucial readjustment is needed and the scene is repeated over and over until it's done. No stunt doubles.

The similarities between China now and Ireland then are striking.

Ireland in the time of Synge's play was changing rapidly - urbanisation was beginning in earnest, the country grappling with modernity. The scale may be hugely different, but similar forces are at work in China.

This is dramatised by one of the great figures of the play , Christy's father, played superbly by Bao Gang. His "Old Mahon" is a menacing figure, dressed like a Long March veteran in the army surplus clothing which is so common among the rural poor in China. His ragged clothes and rugged features are a fantastic contrast to the gold and silver miniskirts and spike-heeled boots of the girls in the cast.

When he and the Widow Quinn stand together centre-stage, it's a powerful image of old and new China meeting.

Gavin Quinn directed the play through interpreters, forcing him to be more dictatorial, as there is no time for "please", "perhaps" or "maybe". Everything is in the imperative, possibly one reason why the first dress rehearsal took place days before opening night.

Quinn gave all the cast Irish names, adding to the confusion over what people are called in the play - everyone has their Chinese name, their Irish name, their name in the play, their name in Synge's play and then, occasionally, a nickname. It's bewildering to have all the Aislings, Iarlas and Sineads rushing around, though it does make it easier to remember everyone's name if you're not a Chinese speaker.

"My name is Ting Ting, but my Irish name is Bláithín. Miaow," says one of the arch coquettes who are the three village girls - you can't have four in China, it's unlucky. They are superb, and do much to open the audience up on opening night, a successful cross between the three graces, the three bears, the three blind mice and the "three represents" of socialist thought.

However, when the three girls surround Ma Shang, Pegeen Mike pulls them away with great determination. Physicality is a major factor in Chinese theatre, and this is a particularly active Playboy, with lots of fighting and throwing around, even with elements of kung fu. One scene has dancing, like in a beer commercial.

"The actors thought it was very funny, which is great. There is a certain strangeness for a Chinese cast working with a foreign director, and I sense Chinese actors are bit shyer than Irish actors, but overall the cast is extremely conscientious, disciplined and hard-working. They really want to make it work," says Quinn.

The design is by Quinn's Pan Pan co-founder Aedín Cosgrove. A long mirror at the back captures the action on the wide, shallow stage, which is fringed with black-and-white tiles. On each side of the stage there are TVs showing the action in the dressing rooms. This is not a realist piece.

IT'S THE FIRST major Irish theatre production in Beijing since the Gate Theatre's production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot during the China-Ireland Arts Festival in 2004, which was greeted warmly but with some bafflement.

But this is essentially a Chinese Playboy, and is a much more direct piece. It's well-paced, funny and very hip, which goes down a treat with the Chinese audiences. A lot of this is to do with the rhythm. After the opening, many audience members asked about the Irish version, curious to see how it compares.

"I knew a little bit about Ireland before the play as I had an Irish friend in Shanghai. I know that Ireland is independent now but that it has lost its language," says Junnian.

Jointly producing the play are independent theatre producers Vallejo Ganter and Zhaohui Wang.

Wang, a Beijing-born Australian citizen, is normally a film producer, but was tireless in her efforts to make Playboy work in Beijing. "The reaction was exactly what we hoped for. We've got a lot of plans now and hope to tour it around. We were worried the audience might miss out on some of the finer points but they didn't - the script worked very well," she says.

Actress Sun Yue, who helped with the production, cries as the cast leaves the stage on opening night. "The point where Christy put on the girl's things was the most important moment for me. I felt so sad I cried. It's a great play. Classical is classical."

Translations from Mayo to Beijing

The themes are universal, but there are some crucial differences between the Playboy in Beijing and the one in Dublin in 1907.

The original

Scene: Country public-house or shebeen, very rough and untidy. There is a sort of counter on the right with shelves, holding many bottles and jugs, just seen above it. Empty barrels stand near the counter. At back, a little to left of counter, there is a door into the open air, then, more to the left, there is a settle with shelves above it, with more jugs, and a table beneath a window. At the left there is a large open fire-place, with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a wild-looking but fine girl, of about 20, is writing at table. She is dressed in the usual peasant dress.

The Beijing version

Scene: Hairdresser in the suburbs of Beijing, with a long mirror along the wall. There is a sort of counter on the right with shelves, holding bottles of Tsingtao beer and hairdressing paraphernalia. At the side, a little to right of counter, there is a door with plastic strips to keep the cold air out. La La, a wild-looking but fine girl, of about 25, is tidying up. She is dressed in the usual hairdressers' garb - a very short skirt, knee-high boots, a thigh-length coat and a singlet.

The original

Shawn: "Oh, Father Reilly and the saints of God, where will I hide myself to-day? Oh, St Joseph and St Patrick and St Brigid, and St James, have mercy on me now!"

The Beijing version

Yinjun: "Zhende! Wo pa!" (Really! I'm scared!)

The original

Then Christy Mahon, a slight young man, comes in, very tired and frightened and dirty.

The Beijing version

Ma Shang, a slight young man, comes in, very tired, frightened and dirty. He stands like a migrant worker, his shoes dusty.

The original

Mahon: "I want to destroy him for breaking the head on me with the clout of a loy." (He takes off a big hat, and shows his head in a mass of bandages and plaster, with some pride.)

The Beijing version

Lao Ma's head is also bandaged, but is hidden underneath a PLA hat with built-in earmuffs. He looks like a figure from Communist propaganda and he, too, is proud of his wound.